Yessenia

Yessenia is a graduate student studying to be a speech therapist with an emphasis on traumatic brain injuries. She spends far too much time correcting the wrong people on the internet, lifting heavy things and training her cats. She's a proud internet atheist and trolls only for the greater good.

“Shut up!” and “Please have a bit of respect for people” in the same comment! Talk about contradictory.

Draw Mohammed Day is not “mocking muslims.” It is mocking people who threaten (and carry through) with murdering people over drawing images of a mythohistorical figure. If that’s not worth mocking, I certainly don’t know what is.

And it’s not a “racial attack” as Islam is not a race, but a religion. Certainly some people’s drawings could include racist or xenophobic content, but not the one posted here.

If you can’t make more constructive, less ass-hatty comments, please just refrain in the future.

I don’t know, I appreciate that he volunteered to be an object lesson in why it’s important to mock Islam. He seems to forget that in places where Islam IS in power, it’s not very nice to atheists, women, or LGBT folks.

And I’m still laughing at the suggestion that the atheist blog I write for is not the place to spread my internet atheism.

Why did you as an author deem it necessary to mock every muslim in the world, by disrespecting their religion?
You’re saying that it’s important to mock Islam, because muslims according to you aren’t very nice to neither atheists, women nor LGBTs.

Firstly, this is highly ignorant of LGBT and women muslims. There are millions of people out there who are both LGBT and muslim, or woman and muslim, or even a secular muslim (as in a person who doesn’t directly believe, but still values Islam culturally.)
Case in point: Alqaws, the primary LGBT NGO in Palestine.

When attacking an entire religion, instead of the specific assholes in power of the traditionally islamic nations, you’re damning millions and millions of people.
Shouldn’t you instead be focusing your anger on the fascistic leaders
of these countries, who ruin the lives of their citizens?
Evil isn’t a muslim thing, but is used as an excuse for their behavior, both on
their own part, but it’s certainly also perpetuated as fact in our media.

Second, WOMEN – LGBT PEOPLE – ATHEISTS ON THE INTERNET.
One of these are not like the others, you can’t EVER honestly claim that
internet atheists suffer just as much as both women and LGBTs. /r/atheism
aren’t exactly the daily target of hate crimes you might think it is.

You’re a college grad, I don’t believe that you don’t see the insidious thoughts behind Draw Muhammed.
Here in Denmark, ie., we have pretty definate proof that the Muhammed drawings were published WELL KNOWING that it could ignite riots.
Take this in a political context, where, among other things, Denmark prior to
the drawings were involved in an invasive war in the middle east.
First we fly in and kill thousands of civillians, and THEN we mock their
religion? I think I see where the anger stems from.

Your argument wasn’t dismissed–I addressed it while simultaneously pointing out your hypocrisy of crying for respect while telling someone to shut up.

You’re also being hypocritical because you’re trying to have it both ways: you say it’s fine to mock Christianity but not Islam.

I fail to see how anything Yessenia has posted is “highly ignorant of LGBT and women muslims.” She specifically said, “in places where Islam IS in power, it’s not very nice to atheists, women, or LGBT folks” (emphasis mine). In other words, societies where Islam is the majority religion are not exactly celebratory of marginalized peoples. This, in fact, is an explicit acknowledgement that queer people, women, and atheists exist in such societies.

That being said, “Draw Mohammed Day” and this post are not attacks on “an entire religion.” They are making a mockery of certain Muslims who feel that drawing Mohammed is enough of a terrible thing that it warrants MURDER.

No one said most of the bullshit you’re accusing them of. For example, point to the exact place where anyone on this site has said:
“We should focus on drawing pictures of Mohammed and ignore the horrible things going on in many places around the world, including Islamic countries.”
“Evil is found solely in Islam. Only Muslims are capable of evil.”
“Atheists suffer just as much as both women and queer people.”

You won’t find it because no one who writes for Queereka thinks that way. We don’t play oppression olympics, and we certainly don’t have such a myopic and narrow understanding of the evils that human beings are capable of enacting. You are putting words in people’s mouths and building straw arguments.

And you certainly won’t get any argument from me that the wars that many Western powers are involved in in the Middle East are extremely problematic and absolutely atrocious. But don’t you dare use globalization and international terrorism as an excuse for murdering people for drawing cartoons. Certainly you can see the difference between calling for an end to harmful military action and calling for the murder of a journalist for printing a cartoon.

Now, again, if you would like to discuss some of the racist and xenophobic things that have been drawn during Draw Mohammed Day, that’s a fair criticism and something that should be denounced and discouraged. But that’s not what has happened in this post–not even close.

Of course it’s more acceptable to mock christianity than it is to mock islam.
Christian privilege is a huge thing, and for example, I doubt you’ll be exempt from any job for being because of you supposed christianity.
Do you also think that Black History Month is bull, when we can’t have White History Month?
This is after all discrimination.

Not all discrimination is born equal.

I never tried to claim that Yessina didn’t think there was any people at all of
the aforementioned groups in the countries.
My point was, that coming as an outsider, wanting to fight THEIR battles, can
be a bad thing. When wanting to support the feminist and LGBT organizations
in muslim countries, you kinda get off on the wrong foor when you start
off by mocking the religion of the people you’re trying to help.
The NGOs in these countries KNOW their stuff, and many of them are probably
muslim on purpose.
If you want to help these people, you could send monetary
donations instead.

Will, if Person took a shit on a crucifix to spite Westboro Baptist Church, I’d
wouldn’t even know that it was an attack on a specific group.
I’d still think it was bullshit, because it NOWHERE was obvious, that the
“commentary” weren’t directed at my religion, but at a very specific
group of people.
Draw Muhammed Day is exactly the same. It might be an attack on a few kinds of
angry muslims, but the “happening” can offend every single muslim in the world.
Are they not right to be offended? People are, after all, regarding their Holy
Prophet as a plaything you can mock whenever you like.

We shouldn’t draw pictures of ANYTHING, when the goal is to spite people.
I absoluty condemn calling for the murder of anyone, I wouldn’t think this
needs any clarification at all.
Draw Muhammed Day is however a petty and childish troll that serves as an
excuse to mock religion without taking sensibilities of other people into
account.

Freedom of speech goes both ways, so just as some basement dweller legally is
allowed to draw Muhammed as a dog, I’m allowed to criticize him plenty for doing
so, and tell him why it’s wrong,

I DO think that the sentence
“it’s not very nice to atheists, women, or LGBT folks.” compares the plight of
atheists to the global oppression of women and queer people.

and also a final reply to the tone argument in the very top.
If I hear someone go “Hey, fucking sandnigger,” I’m certainly not holding back
on my anger, saying “excuse me Sir, kindly Sir. You might, sorry for implying
this, but you might just have been a teeny tiny bit racist. No offense!”
That would be bull.

You’re being ethnocentric in the extreme. Christian privilege is a present in certain parts of the world. You might not be exempted from a job for being Christian in Denmark or the US, but you certainly could in other parts of the world. But, you know what? This has nothing to do with whether or not certain people are able to be mocked. Just because there is straight privilege does not mean people shouldn’t mock radical queer people who are advocating murder for drawing unicorns.

I also have no idea how Black History Month has any relation to this argument, but the reason we “can’t” have a “White History Month” is because every fucking month is White History Month. Black History Month is a sorry attempt at alleviating white guilt; it’s not about actually recognizing the achievements of black people.

I don’t disagree that it can be a bad thing to try to fight the battles of people in other societies when we approach them from ethnocentric places. That goes for you as well! But Yessenia and Draw Mohammed Day are not doing that. I’ve already explained this twice. The goal is to bring awareness to the silliness that is threatening to murder people for drawing an image of Mohammed. It is not to “mock all muslims” nor is it mocking Islam as a religion.

As far as offense, is that really the criterion you want to establish for whether or not we should do things? In that case, there should be no atheism, no skepticism, no feminism, no queer people, and on and on. Everyone’s offended by something. But the thing is, it doesn’t fucking matter. Satire is an entirely valid form of artistic expression and political activism. Further, I might hate the Westboro Baptist Church, but I would never want to silence them and take away their freedom of expression, regardless of how offensive or hateful it is. I can’t say the same for the radical extremists who want to murder people for drawing cartoons. You still have not acknowledged the completely ridiculous and extremely violent response to this offense–you keep going on as if being offended justifies MURDER. I still haven’t seen you repudiate that; all I’ve seen is you try to justify it.

I’m not telling you that you’re not allowed to criticize Draw Mohammed Day. If you’ve noticed, I’ve let all of your comments through moderation. I’m not exactly trying to silence you here. So I’d appreciate it if you’d cut the “free speech goes both ways” crap. You are the one trying to silence people, not us.

I DO think that the sentence “it’s not very nice to atheists, women, or LGBT folks.” compares the plight of atheists to the global oppression of women and queer people.

Then you’re reading it wrong. What that sentence means is that all three of those groups of people are oppressed, not that atheists are oppressed more than the other two groups. It says nothing of how they are oppressed or whether or not one group is oppressed more than another–they’re all three oppressed.

and also a final reply to the tone argument in the very top. If I hear someone go “Hey, fucking sandnigger,” I’m certainly not holding back on my anger, saying “excuse me Sir, kindly Sir. You might, sorry for implying this, but you might just have been a teeny tiny bit racist. No offense!” That would be bull.

You’re right, if someone had said that to you then I’d certainly think anger and “shut up” was warranted. However, no one fucking said that to you on here at all. You being offended by Draw Mohammed Day or even by Yessenia’s participation in it is one thing, but no one ever said anything remotely like that in this post or to you in the comments.

Once again, as I’ve stated now twice, I would welcome a discussion of how some people draw horrible, racist, xenophobic, and horrible things on Draw Mohammed Day. You can even link to examples of these if you’d like. And I promise you we’d all condemn them because that’s not what it’s about. No one is denying that those things happen. But–and this is important so pay attention–those things are not present in this site or this post or this drawing or these comments. You might be offended and use that offense to read into them what other people have done, but that’s not a fair assessment of this particular post. And there are plenty of images from Draw Mohammed Day that have no hint of racism or xenophobia in them at all because they’re just stick figures.

To end let me repeat myself: Draw Mohammed Day is aimed at mocking the attempts at censorship (something you yourself are advocating here) by certain followers of Islam who have threatened to murder people who draw images of Mohammed. It’s not a blanket mockery of Islam as a religion. Of course there are people who will use this as an opportunity to write, draw, or say horrible things, and we should absolutely condemn those actions. However, we should not seek to censor people, regardless of how offensive or hateful their words may be unless they are inciting violence. You have not demonstrated how this post incites violence towards Muslims, and I have yet to see any reports of people using Draw Mohammed Day as a reason to murder Muslims. What I have seen, however, are people using Draw Mohammed Day as a reason to murder people for drawing cartoons. And until you can recognize and acknowledge that fact, we really don’t have much else to discuss.

Christian privilege is a huge thing, and for example, I doubt you’ll be exempt from any job for being because of you supposed christianity.

That really depends on the country, dunnit? Or have you never encountered the word “Dhimmitude?”

Do you also think that Black History Month is bull, when we can’t have White History Month? This is after all discrimination.

lolwut?

My point was, that coming as an outsider, wanting to fight THEIR battles, can be a bad thing. When wanting to support the feminist and LGBT organizations in muslim countries, you kinda get off on the wrong foor when you start off by mocking the religion of the people you’re trying to help.

How utterly condescending and presumptuous. Spoiler alert: There’s plenty of non-Muslims in Islamic theocracies, even if they’re in the closet about it.

Draw Muhammed Day is exactly the same. It might be an attack on a few kinds of angry muslims, but the “happening” can offend every single muslim in the world.

I had no idea that every single Muslim in the world read Queereka. That’s awesome! I wonder when I’ll get my cut of the ad revenue.

Are they not right to be offended? People are, after all, regarding their Holy Prophet as a plaything you can mock whenever you like.

So because they revere this dude, I should as well? But the same doesn’t apply to Christians because HEY LOOK OVER THERE!

We shouldn’t draw pictures of ANYTHING, when the goal is to spite people.

My goal is to spite people who would murder human beings over cartoons. To me, that’s actually a FANTASTIC reason to draw a picture (and drawing is an activity that does not even need an excuse!).

I absoluty condemn calling for the murder of anyone, I wouldn’t think this needs any clarification at all.

Then stop making excuses for murderers. That’s called victim-blaming.

Draw Muhammed Day is however a petty and childish troll that serves as an excuse to mock religion without taking sensibilities of other people into
account.

Of course I didn’t take them into account. The whole point is that I have contempt for such sensibilities, and rightly so. If someone thinks Mohammed shouldn’t be drawn, they’re welcome to not draw him.

Freedom of speech goes both ways, so just as some basement dweller legally is allowed to draw Muhammed as a dog, I’m allowed to criticize him plenty for doing so, and tell him why it’s wrong,

Now you’re gettin’ it! You can respond as you please without a care in the world for my sensibilities. That’s how it should be.

I DO think that the sentence “it’s not very nice to atheists, women, or LGBT folks.” compares the plight of atheists to the global oppression of women and queer people.

Why yes, it does! And that’s because people are sitting in prison waiting to be executed in Islamic theocracies right this very moment for crimes such as “blasphemy” and “apostasy.”

and also a final reply to the tone argument in the very top. If I hear someone go “Hey, fucking s—n—,” I’m certainly not holding back on my anger, saying “excuse me Sir, kindly Sir. You might, sorry for implying this, but you might just have been a teeny tiny bit racist. No offense!” That would be bull.

Don’t use racial slurs on this site, especially if you’re pretending to be some grand anti-racist crusader. You might just have been a teeny tiny bit racist.

[…] My drawing of Mohammed attracted a mediocre troll who, in addition to scolding me for spreading my internet atheism in such an inappropriate venue (my atheist blog!), regurgitated a few extremely common tropes that are worth addressing. […]